NURSE CAVELL EPIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 8

NURSE CAVELL EPIC

ANNA NEACLE PICTURE AT KING'S

Nurse Edith Cavell is not a new figure on stage or screen, but the R.K.O. picture exhibited yesterday and last night at the King's Theatre, to large and thrilled audiences, comes' with all the freshness of novelty, and shows that the appeal and glamoursurrounding Edith Cayell (name of undying fame) are undiminished. Even if there was no war on, the picture, "Nurse Edith Cavell," played as it is by Anna Neagle and a very competent supporting company, would be an outstanding picture. It therefore comes before the public, in thesj/ war days, wtih a double appeal—as a sidelight on the horrors of war, and as a classic among the stories of people who have died selfiessly for a cause. Whether its audiences view the picture solely from the latter standpoint, or whether they view it also through war spectacles, as many of them will do and must do, they will agree that "Nurse Edith Cavell" is a worth-while contribution to a story that will never die. Edith Cavell herself, be it remembered, did not stand for war bitterness. Almost her last words to the.British chaplain in Brussels, before facing the German firing squad for the admitted offence of helping Allied prisoners, were: "I realise that patriotism isn't enough—± must have no hatred or , bitterness towards anyone." So Edith Cavell does not herself stand up as an accuser Of the Germans—but the facts of her story do. They reveal the Germans when engaged in legal murder, and to that extent explain the German psychology which takes not only legal murder, but illegal murder in its stride. A notable feature of the picture is the last-hour rush in Brussels of the American attache Hugh Gibson (played by H.. B. Warner) to secure, from this tm-hat or from that tin-hat,'confirmation of the death sentence and a postponement thereof. He could obtain neither. Fearful of merciful intervention from Berlin, the German tin-hats in Brussels kept secret the death sentence and hurried forward the shooting—lest the Kaiser intervene. Finally the military commander (Bissing) passed the responsibility to the.-military governor of Brussels (Erhardt)' and the American attache was. left. helpless. Anna Neagle, English actress of fame, plays Nurse Cavell with great talent arid, be it noted, with great restraint. Hers is a selfless, almost sexless Cayell that will live in memory. May Robson plays one of her usual bid woman roles very effectively as a patriotic Belgian woma'h assisting to outwit the Germans; Edna May Oliver is an imposing Belgian countess; and Zasu Pitts, the well-known droll comique, proves her versatility by making an excellent barge-woman engaged in the thrillwork of assisting prisoners to escape along the Belgian canals. The picture is, indeed, besides being a human story, a thriller in its way. Never has a.pro-ducer-director depicted better, by camera effects, the awful majesty of war andvits awful horrors than Herbert Wilcox has done .in "Nurse Edith Cavell."

Supports include a Walt Disney cai> toon in cplour, featuring Donald Duck in a series of hilarious episodes.